Spider Shepherd: SAS (Volume 2)

By Stephen Leather

The second volume of six Spider Shepherd short stories in one volume by bestselling author Stephen Leather. The short stories are Personal Protection, The Rope, Planning Pack, Friendly Fire, Dead Drop and Kill Zone and feature Dan "Spider" Shepherd whose adventures have been Sunday Times bestsellers.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was named by Bookseller magazine as one of the most influential figures in British publishing. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Leather
• Release date: Dec 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311505699

Stephen Leather

Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com

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SPIDER SHEPHERD: SAS (VOLUME 2)

By Stephen Leather

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Published by:

Stephen Leather at Smashwords

Copyright (c) 2014 by Stephen Leather

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan Spider Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com and you can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenleather. The six short stories in this collection have previously appeared as self-published short stories. They cover Shepherd’s time in the Middle East and Afghanistan with the SAS and recount how he narrowly escaped with his life. The stories also introduce Lex Harper who appears in the Spider Shepherd novels.

Personal Protection

The Rope

Planning Pack

Friendly Fire

Dead Drop

Kill Zone

PERSONAL PROTECTION

CYPRUS

November, 1997

The change in the engine note as the Hercules began to descend woke Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd from a fitful sleep. He glanced around him. As usual Jock McIntyre and Geordie Mitchell were still sleeping. Both of them had the uncanny ability to sleep anywhere at any time, no matter what noise and distractions - even gunfire - there might be, yet on a whispered word of command, both would be instantly awake and alert. James ‘Jimbo’ Shortt’s lanky frame was also prone among the jumble of equipment stacked and lashed to the Hercules unforgiving steel floor and walls, but his eyes were wide open, staring at the ribbed metal roof.

Shepherd yawned and stretched, then peered out of the tiny window to his left. As the Hercules banked around, he caught a glimpse of the radomes of the listening station high on the flanks of Troodos Mountain. Beneath him, the dark shadow of the Hercules was etched across the brilliant white salt flats north of Akrotiri, the heat rising from them in shimmering waves. The aircraft rumbled in and touched down with a thud that shook Jock and Geordie awake.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cyprus,’ Jimbo said. ‘Thank you for flying Crabs Airlines, please remain in your seats until the aircraft has come to a complete stop outside the terminal and the pilot has switched off the seatbelt signs.’

‘You’d have made a lovely stewardess,’ Geordie said, ‘if you weren’t so butt ugly.’

The Hercules juddered to a halt and as the tailgate was lowered, Shepherd hoisted his bergen onto his shoulders and led the others down the ramp on to the concrete hardstanding of the UK Sovereign Base Area. It was a fiercely hot day but after the tropical heat of Sierra Leone the lack of humidity in the air was as refreshing as a cooling breeze.

‘Not much of a welcoming party,’ he said as he looked around. A lone figure, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt was striding towards them. He was craggy faced and greying at the temples and though his legs and upper body were hard muscled, the thickening around his waist suggested that he was now spending more time driving a desk than on training and ops.

‘Anyone know him?’ Shepherd muttered as the man approached.

‘No,’ Jock said, ‘but you can tell he’s been around a bit, one of the old and bold.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just look at his right hand.’ Shepherd followed his gaze and saw that the man’s fingers were curled over.

‘All the old guys get like that,’ Jock said. He held up his own hand. ‘In fact it’s started to happen to me too - it comes from holding a rifle for years.’

‘Morning guys,’ the man said as he walked up to them. ‘I’m Rusty. I don’t think I know any of you, do I?’

‘You’re not Rusty Nail?’ asked Jock.

‘The very same,’ said Rusty, narrowing his eyes. ‘Do you know me?’

‘Not personally, but I know you by reputation,’ Jock said. ‘You’ve worked on a couple of team jobs with a mate of mine: Spud.’

Rusty broke into a smile. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a blast from the past. Any friend of Spud’s is a friend of mine.’

Shepherd nodded. Jake ‘Spud’ Edwards had been one of his trainers back at the SAS Stirling Lines camp in Hereford and was a bit of a legend in the Regiment. The others introduced themselves. ‘So are you just passing through like us, Rusty?’ Shepherd said.

‘No, I’m based here.’

‘I didn’t even know we had a presence in Cyprus,’ Shepherd said.

Rusty nodded. ‘It’s not an operational section, purely administrative.’

Shepherd glanced around, squinting against the bright sunlight. Beyond the usual sprawl of hangers, concrete buildings and Portakabins that characterised every overseas base, he could see pine clad mountains in the distance to the north, and the sails of windsurfers and yachts speckling the Mediterranean beyond the sandstone cliffs and beaches flanking the peninsula that surrounded the base on three sides. ‘Looks like a pretty cushy posting,’ he said.

‘You can have it, if you want it, and welcome to it,’ said Rusty sourly.

‘So what happens here?’

‘Workwise? Not a lot. The Regiment has a permanent cell here, but it’s only two guys - grey-beards like me seeing out the last few years of service before being pensioned off. There are a few Scalies to run the signals equipment and deal with messages to and from the Head Shed in the UK.’ Scalies was short for Scaleybacks, in reference to the radio equipment the signallers carried on their backs like turtle shells.

‘So if it’s that quiet, why is the Regiment here at all?’ Jimbo said.

‘Partly because historically we’ve used the Base Military hospital here as a stopover to repair guys ill or injured on operations in Africa and the Middle East before sending them on to the UK, but that’s about it.’

‘And the other reason?’

‘Because of those.’ Rusty pointed towards the radomes on Mount Troodos, just visible through the heat haze. ‘Being here gives the Regiment prime access to the intelligence generated through the listening station up there. It’s run by GCHQ on behalf of us and the Yanks. Just about every terrorist organisation in the Middle East maintains an office on Cyprus. It’s a convenient centrally located meeting place where they can launder their money and arrange the purchase of weapons, and it’s also useful as a jumping off point to gain access to Europe through Greece. So both the UK and the US maintain a good sized security presence on the island, but life here is nowhere near as interesting as that makes it sound, at least as far as we’re concerned. Most of the time we’re just watching the grass grow and the dust blow. It’s bloody frustrating. I’m out in a few months and I need to be back in the UK working on my contacts, getting onto The Circuit so I’ve a job lined up for when I hit civvy street, not twiddling my thumbs and counting down the days to my retirement in a dead end job on a sunbaked rock in the middle of the Med.’

‘Why did they send you here then?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Punishment detail?’

Rusty smiled. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but it’s mainly because I speak fluent Arabic and, having worked all over the Middle East - Oman, Jordan, the UAE and a couple of places we don’t talk about - I know the culture too. I guess they thought that if you’re going to carry out surveillance on Arab terrorists, it probably helps if you can understand what they’re saying to each other.’

‘So that just leaves the question of what we’re doing here,’ Shepherd said. ‘Because none of us speaks a word of Arabic.’

Rusty spread his hands wide. ‘On that one, your guess is as good as mine. While you’re waiting to find out, you can work on your suntan or go windsurfing and wake-boarding down at the Lemming Beach Club at Happy Valley, or even clubbing at Ayia Napa if that appeals. When I first came here, back in the day, before I’d even joined the regiment, Ayia Napa was just a sleepy little village, with the most perfect beach you’ve ever seen a couple of miles down a one-track dirt road. Nissi Beach was a horseshoe-shaped cove with a little rocky island just off-shore that you could walk through the shallows to reach. The water was crystal clear and as warm as a hot bath. That’s all still true, but back then there was a small camp-site and a grass-roofed beach-hut where you could buy a beer or an ice cream, and that was it. Now Nissi Beach is wall to wall with high rise hotels, and Ayia Napa is all amusement parks, bars and vomit-strewn streets full of stag and hen nights, clubbers and pissed up squaddies.’

Jock shook his head. ‘Bloody hell, Rusty, you must be even older than you look. Ayia Napa’s been like that as long as I’ve been passing through here.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ Jimbo said, ‘I might take a look tonight.’

‘I won’t,’ Shepherd said, ‘I can see enough pissed-up teenagers in Hereford without going looking for them here as well.’

The SAS compound was in a corner of the base, wired off from the RAF section. There was the usual concrete admin building, still with its Cold War protection of berms and concrete blast walls, and offices the size of broom cupboards and a slightly larger briefing room. Surrounding it was a huddle of tents and Portakabins. ‘That’s yours,’ Rusty said, pointing to a converted shipping container screened from the sun by an awning and with a clanking, rusted air conditioning unit precariously attached to the outside.

‘All the comforts of home,’ said Geordie.

‘The canteen’s there.’ Rusty gestured towards a huge khaki tent on the far side of the office block, ‘or if you fancy something edible, there are food shops and cafes in Episkopi at the western end of the base area.’

‘And bars?’ Jimbo said, trying not to sound too eager.

‘I use the Beach Club at Happy Valley. There’s a spare Landy you can borrow to get down there.’

Rusty left them to unpack their gear. ‘So what’s Rusty’s story?’ Shepherd asked Jock.

‘He’s a bit of a legend,’ said Jock. ‘He’s one of the few to have worked undercover in Belfast. His Irish accent is pretty much perfect, Spud says. He was into some pretty heavy stuff over there in the early eighties.’

‘Shoot to kill?’ asked Shepherd.

‘That’s the story according to Spud,’ said Jock.

‘Let’s give him a few beers and see if he’ll tell us some war stories,’ said Jimbo.

‘I doubt that’ll happen,’ said Shepherd. ‘He didn’t seem the sort to go running off at the mouth.’

Shepherd and the others stashed their kit in the shipping container and within half an hour they were stretched out on sun loungers on the sand in front of the Beach Club.

‘I’ve said it before,’ Geordie said, ‘and I’ll say it again: this is the life.’

‘Remind me, why are we here?’ said Jimbo.

‘Because our masters, in their infinite wisdom, have sent us here. Who are we mere mortals to question it?’ As usual, Jock’s low, growling voice and impenetrable Glaswegian accent made even the most anodyne statement sound like a declaration of war. ‘People pay good money to come here on holiday and we’re here for nothing, courtesy of HMG. So stop your whingeing and enjoy it.’

‘I’m not whingeing, I’m just wondering how long we’ll get to enjoy it before we’re re-tasked.’

‘The longer the better as far as I’m concerned,’ Shepherd said. ‘After a couple of months in Sierra Leone, rescuing diamonds from the mercenaries for HMG - and getting bugger all thanks for it - we’re due a bit of downtime. With a bit of luck they might even forget we’re here. If we stay long enough, we’ll not only get a sun tan, we might even get a bit of skiing in the mountains as well. Now pass the Ambre Solaire and get the beers in.’

‘I hate to tell you this, but it’s your round,’ Jock said.

Shepherd sighed and shook his head. ‘You’ve tried that scam on once too often, you tight-arsed, tartan-wearing, bagpipe blowing, Irn Bru supping, deep fried Mars Bar guzzling git. It’s your round and don’t give me the old I’ve forgotten my wallet line either because I can see it in your pocket’.

‘That’s not his wallet, Spider, he’s just pleased to see you,’ Geordie said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, when you two drama queens have finished arguing about who’s paying for it, mine’s a pint.’

Jock departed for the bar, still grumbling. Shepherd lay back and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his body. He was just starting to unwind when a shadow fell across his face. ‘About time too, Shepherd said. ‘I’ve got a thirst you could flaming photograph.’

‘So glad you’re pleased to see me.’ They were not Jock’s gravel-throated tones, and the accent was English upper-crust, not Glaswegian. ‘After what you said to me last time we met, I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d receive.’

Shepherd shaded his eyes, squinting into the sun. A tall man was standing over him, his face shaded by a Panama hat. He wore an immaculately cleaned and pressed cream linen suit and a white cotton shirt and, despite the heat, he was also wearing a tie.

Shepherd scowled at him. ‘And you’re no more welcome now than you were then,’ he said. ‘What do you want?

Jonathan Parker’s professed occupation of Third World importer and exporter was a cover for his work as an MI6 officer. Shepherd and his team had first encountered Parker in Sierra Leone when they’d rescued a botched operation that Parker was supervising and there was no love lost between them.

There was a mouthful of expletives from Jock as he came out of the bar and caught sight of Parker. Geordie and Jimbo looked equally unhappy at seeing the MI6 officer. Parker ignored their surly looks as he brushed the sand from a sun lounger with his handkerchief and the perched himself on the edge of it. ‘I’ve a little job for you,’ he said, having glanced around to make sure they could not be overheard.

‘We’ve got jobs,’ said Jock. ‘We’re in the SAS, or have you forgotten that?’

‘No need to be tetchy,’ said Parker. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be doing something soldierly than lying on a beach?’

‘The only lying going on is when you open your mouth,’ said Geordie.

‘Guys, come on now,’ said Parker. ‘There’s no need for this. I’ve got a job that needs doing and you’re the perfect candidates for the task at hand.’

‘Send someone else,’ Shepherd said. ‘We’ve only been here about twenty minutes after two months on ops in Sierra Leone. We’re due some R and R and then a spell on stand-by before we go back on ops.’ There was a rumble of agreement from the others.

‘Sorry chaps,’ Parker said imperturbably. ‘No rest for the wicked and all that. There’s a rather delicate situation in a certain Middle Eastern country and we need your expertise. There is no one else available with your range of skills, and don’t worry, it’s already been cleared with the MoD and Hereford.’

‘So have some of your pet mercenaries gone rogue on you again?’ asked Shepherd.

Parker flicked a speck of dust from his lapel, as if brushing away the comment. ‘No, nothing like that, this is purely a training task.’ He paused. ‘Now I don’t want to spoil your fun, but it is a matter of some urgency. Shall we say 1600 hours in the briefing room back at the base?’

‘If it’s just a training task, why the urgency?’ Shepherd said, but Parker was already walking away up the beach.

The four SAS men were in a mutinous mood as they filed into the briefing room just before four o’clock. Rusty was already there and Parker swept in a moment later, followed by five signallers, between them carrying a piece of electronic equipment the size of a three-drawer filing cabinet.

Parker glanced around the room, then cleared his throat. ‘Right then, you are to deploy on a top secret bodyguard training task in a Middle Eastern country. After neglecting the Middle East in the dash to join the EU, HMG is concerned to maintain what little influence we still have in the region and the state in question is a crucial part of that.’ He paused, and made eye contact with them one at a time. ‘Background: there are two cousins from the ruling family locked in a power struggle. The Ruler is a modernist aligned to the West. He has two wives, one an American Muslim, a college graduate and a licensed pilot. The second wife is the daughter of another Middle Eastern ruler. She was brought up as a strict Muslim but is trying to modernise her outlook with the help of wife Number One.’

Jimbo laughed out loud. ‘Any man who wants two wives needs his head examined,’ he said. ‘Twice the nagging.’

Parker ignored the interruption. ‘The ruler is an interesting character, a trained F16 pilot who also flies his own Airbus, and needless to say the country’s huge oil reserves mean that he’s one of the richest men in the world. So far, all pretty straightforward. However, the ruler’s religiously conservative cousin is determined to get back what he believes, probably rightfully, is his throne.’

‘Why rightfully?’ asked Shepherd.

Parker grimaced. ‘We deposed his father in a bloodless Palace coup several years ago - he was threatening the security of our oil supplies and even flirting with the Russians - so we sent him into exile in London and he lived out his days in a Park Lane hotel before dying a few years ago. His son insists that if we had not deposed his father and forced him into exile, he would now be the legitimate ruler of the country, so he has set out to depose his cousin and reclaim his throne.’

‘Sounds like he has a point,’ said Jimbo. ‘Who are we to decide who runs a country? Our politicians do a shit job running the UK, they’ve no business telling other countries what to do.’

Shepherd threw Jimbo a warning look. ‘Is the cousin a serious threat?’ he asked Parker.

‘He’s been missing from his usual haunts for several weeks now and sigint and humint suggest that he’s recruited a group of Chechen mercenaries. It looks as if he is getting backing, money, arms and men from somewhere, though we’re not sure where as yet.’

‘Now why does that not surprise me?’ said Jimbo.

Parker ignored the interruption but his lips tightened. ‘We picked up electronic intelligence on the plot, and so we’ve decided to dispatch you to train a hand-picked cadre of the ruler’s troops as an elite bodyguard group,’ he said. ‘And of course we want you to keep the ruler alive until the BG group you’ve trained is operationally ready and the coup plot has been dealt with.’

‘Why us?’ Jock growled.

‘Because you’re the best available team and you’re already on the spot,’ said Parker. ‘You’re here and you now your stuff. The proverbial bird in the hand.’

‘Now that I could work with,’ said Geordie. ‘A bird in the hand is just what I need right now.’

Parker gestured towards the signallers’ equipment. ‘I’ve brought along something that should help, state of the art electronic gadgetry to support your team in-country.’

Parker nodded to one of the signallers, a ginger-haired guy in his late twenties whose Adam’s apple wobbled when he cleared his throat. ‘It’s an electronic comms and suppression system,’ said the signaller in a West Country accent that hinted of cider and sheep-filled fields. ‘It can detect bugs and intercept them and also put a blanket transmission blackout on an area. It will also suppress signals to detonate IEDs and other types of bomb. The system operates largely automatically and is part of a network run from GCHQ in Cheltenham.’

‘What’s it weigh?’ Shepherd asked.

The signaller frowned, not understanding the point of the question. ‘Just under one hundred pounds,’ he said.

‘Then the system’s fine,’ Shepherd said, ‘and we can make good use of it, but if that’s all it weighs and it operates semi-automatically, why do we need a five-man team of Scalies to run it?’ He saw a couple of them bridle at the use of the semi-derogatory nickname the SAS used for signallers but he was in no mood to be sparing feelings.

‘Because,’ Parker said, with exaggerated patience, ‘you need them available 24-7 and working the same hours that you do.’

‘Exactly. And we’ll only need one man for that. We work hard and he can do the same. Having too many guys lying around with nothing to do is just a recipe for problems in-country. He glanced across at the signallers. ‘So which one of you Scalies is the most experienced?’ he asked.

‘That would be me,’ said the one who had spoken before. ‘Mike Smith. They call me Beebop’.

‘And if I tell you that we will be working all the hours God sends and maybe a few more on top, Beebop, would that put you off?’

Beebop grinned. ‘No, it’ll keep the boredom at bay.’

‘Good, you’ll do then,’ said Shepherd. He looked at Parker. ‘You can send the rest packing. Beebop’s all we need. ‘ Parker nodded at the remaining signallers and gestured at the door with his chin. Shepherd waited until the other four had filed out of the room before continuing. ‘Okay, so a five-man team then: me Jock, Geordie, Jimbo and Beebop.’

‘And I’ll be there from time to time to liaise with the Sheikh on behalf of HMG,’ Parker said.

Jimbo’s hackles were up straightaway. ‘I’m guessing you’ll be doing your liaising from the comfort of a five-star hotel in the capital, not in a tent in the middle of the desert with us,’ he said.

‘I’d sooner he was in a hotel anyway,’ Shepherd said, heading off Jock, whose short fuse was legendary. ‘That way he won’t be getting under our feet. Right, let’s get on with the planning. Usual rules: if you don’t speak up at the planning stage, you don’t get to complain about anything afterwards.’

‘Just before you start,’ Rusty said. ‘I may be talking out of turn here but, correct me if I’m wrong, none of